Folkin' Around
by Cuban Sombrero Gal
Summary: Ten drabbles on different unrequited love pairings, written for challenges at the HPFC. Now complete.
1. They Taste Like Summer Love

_allow me to exaggerate a memory or two  
where summers lasted longer than  
longer than we do_

He falls to the ground, his salty tears staining the palms of his hands as he melts into the pavement, an oozing mess of heartbreak.

Severus thinks back to summers gone by, to those hazy days of hopscotch and ice-blocks, in which he could have believed that she loved him. He thinks of all the times she threw her arms around his neck, beads of sweat dripping from her shiny cheeks like raindrops of happiness, and he remembers: once, they were friends.

Now, he has no words to describe their relationship, cracked like the pavement, only his tears; they taste like summer love.

* * *

**Two words: inspiration loss. None of my other stories are coming to me, and I'm in a drabbly mood, so I decided to write this. There will be ten drabbles, each focussing on a different unrequited love pairing from Kore of Myth's 100 Pairing Challenge. This was also written for TheRavenclawNinja's Love Song Challenge, for which I claimed the song Folkin' Around. :) All the lyrics come from there.**

**Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please leave a review.**


	2. Eternity is a Fickle Word

when nothing really mattered

_when nothing really mattered  
except for me to be with you  
but in time we all forgot and  
we all grew  
_

Remus wonders how life can go on.

He laughs at the world in its delicate state, where memories can sever a life as quickly as a war. They work hand in hand, the horrors of the dead bestowed upon the living, eating them away faster than Death itself.

Seventeen years ago, Remus Lupin was in love with a girl. Seventeen years ago, he would have done anything to fit into the curve of her arms, his head resting against the eternal sound of her heartbeat.

(eternity is a fickle word, it seems).

Seventeen years later, Remus Lupin is teaching himself to forget.


	3. The Salvation and the Sin

_your melody sounds as sweet  
as the first time it was sung_

They fall into a natural rhythm of dancing and singing the night away; with a Firewhiskey or two (or three, or five) they stumble back to… to… what was it she called it- go "folkin' around". Charlie and Tonks are trapped in a whirlwind of desire, their hearts caught somewhere between the salvation and the sin. They fumble with words of confession, and then release that there is nothing: this is indescribable.

Even days after he leaves her flat, the pounding rain drenching him in reminders of her joyous tears, Charli still hears Tonks' - not _Nymphadora, Tonks,_ she chided him – offbeat singing.

(in the face of heartbreak, it's never sounded as sweet)


	4. Suffering from Pride

_with a little bit more character for show_

At first, he's just a nameless face; like most heroes. Romilda thinks it's cute the way he blushes and stutters in company, the way he's never smiling without that red-headed prat and the bushy haired girl at his side.

(she should have heeded that warning; he doesn't need her company)

And then he starts dating _her, _and he becomes more flamboyant, more arrogant, more downright gorgeous, and yet Romilda still sees the messy haired crush he once was.Romilda's friends sigh as she drools over her breakfast plate, smiles gracing her face between whispered curses to blow that little whore up.

(it's part of the reason she's attracted to his new found pride: she suffers herself)

With intense dedication, Romilda begins stirring yet another love potion, its steaming curlicues nowhere near as heated as her fury.


	5. Starcrossed Lovers

_and by the time your father's heard  
of all the wrong you've done  
then i'm putting out the lantern  
find your own way back home_

Theodore watches her, an intangible mess of bushy hair and too-thick eyebrows; he falls into step behind her, his face smoothed over like clay, an impregnable mask of no emotion.

His father will never approve, hell, he's not sure _he _approves. This is not a textbook romance, they are not the substance of dreams, no matter how many fairytales cast the role of the forbidding parent.

They are Theodore and Hermione, the starcrossed lovers who may never meet, and nobody has ever written a story from that. He changes direction to another corridor, snuffing out his lantern, and he wonders if the dying flame is the most symbolic gesture of them all.


	6. Forgotten Angel

_f i've forgotten how to sing  
before i've sung this song_

She is the forgotten angel, the one who cannot sing.

_Gellert, _she forces out, _Gellert, I love you, _an indiscernible barrage of words that become scrambled in her mind. It reminds Ariana of dominoes: the words line up like toy soldiers, before falling over each other in bursts of uncontrollable emotion.

Her words are trapped in the abyss of her throat, and Gellert never hears them. It doesn't mean Ariana forgets.


	7. Simplistic

_i'll write it all across this wall  
before my job is done_

It's impossible not to love him: Tom Riddle, handsome, intelligent, witty, charming – Myrtle's heart beats faster, _one-two, one-two – _perfect.

She laughs at the irony; Myrtle is his complete opposite, she dreams of simplicity, not of heroism or recognition.

Her fingers furl around her quill, caressing it like piano keys, and she scratches their names into the toilet door.

A simplistic gesture, one that Myrtle likes best.


	8. Stage Show

_and i'll even have the courtesy  
of admitting i was wrong  
as the final words before i'm dead and gone_

Draco hates admitting he's wrong. He hates the fall of pride, the way that his shields fall down: he is no longer the haughty, feared leader but the one fading away behind the scenes in the stage show he has cast and produced himself.

His carefully planned script crumples in the place he least expected it to, at home. Somewhere between intermission and the second act his façade falls, the Mud-Hermione is brought in, he is not a fearless warrior anymore.

Draco looses himself in her face, in the courage that she shows – he's always secretly admired, although he's never even admitted it to himself – and he lies. He does not know he, he says, and then he chastises himself for it all, for being wrong.

Later when she escapes, something he thought impossible, he realises that he was right: he does not know her, he only knows what he wishes her to be.


	9. Insanity

_You've never been so divine_

_In accepting your defeat._

_And I've never been more scared to be alone_

_If love is not enough to put my enemies to sleep_

Her fingers twitch as they embrace the Dark Mark, an inky stain of self-destruction and repression not even she can bear. The love for her master eats away at her shriveled heart, their final attempts at victory are fruitless, she knows. Soon Bellatrix will be eating Death in the most literal of ways.

She flounders in the insanity she once reveled in, wondering when this love first took command of her heart. It's only now, at the end of the world as they know it, that she's truly afraid. Her master's soul rests with her, always, but his heart does not.


	10. Pure Disgusting Needs

_then i'm putting out the lantern  
find your own way back home_

He doesn't understand what it is. She flits past him, an extravagant beauty decked in red and gold, and Draco stares after her, mesmerised.

_Ginny Weasley, _he mutters to himself, _Ginny fucking Weasley, she's hot. _

It takes it Draco by surprise, this is an out of body experience, and he's not sure he likes what he sees. This is all lust, pure disgusting needs played out in a crush on the blood traitor.

Her power is too strong, and he simply shakes his head and makes his way back to his common room.

* * *

**So this, dear friends, is the end. A big thanks to Kore of Myth for picking the pairings, to Panic at the Disco for writing this song and singing it so wonderfully, and to everyone who's left a review, you've really made me smile. :)**


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